After nearly two years as Tara in Buffy, and assorted appearances in other shows, she's busy making her second film, "Lovers, Liars and Lunatics".
Apparently there's a rivaly between her and Johnathan Woodward, which started at a Slayercruise. This came to a head when they both offered 30 minutes of themselves to any fan (honorable, of course). She got a higher bid than he did, about 720 to 610 dollars.
Anyway, she also talked about her premiere of Chance in Fort Lauderdale. It came at the same time as a Pop Culture convention. So, she agreed to sign autographs. She met ex-pop star Tiffany, who is a big Buffy fan with her son. That's why she said the show was bringing families together. As for the movie, response was mixed. She told me about how one reviewer was disappointed that James Marster's character, Simon, wasn't like Spike. However, that's the idea...that he can be something aside from Spike. Well, she was proud of his first entry into movie-making. It was a learning experience which she'll take into the future. She learned it's best to cast people that you trust and can do good work. She also commented the toughest part is raising the cash for the film. At least with LLL, she'll be using 35mm film this time. She hopes that she'll be making movies for other people.
She then pretended what "Inside the Actors Studio" would be like if she were the featured guest, like when she had a small role in The Crush (yes, her career is pretty extensive). A lot of ItAC-type questions were asked that weekend, including favorite swear word. She did say Cary Elwes was great, although absent-minded..leaving cigarettes in the oddest places.
The story of Chance was also interesting: Amber based it on a girl who wanted to have sex with guys with no emotional attachments to them. Thing is, she later admitted she coudln't do that. Even stranger: the girl who was the model for auditions for the starring role. There should be a movie about just that.
Amber also commented that sometimes she is mistaken for Claire Danes. Oddly enough, Claire even came up to her during the premiere of Romeo+Juliet, and said that she and Amber had met while auditioning for Matinee. Amber said she didn't remember her until much later.
As for her time on Buffy, she was only in the opening credits once. That was because she preferred being a recurring player because that would give her time to do other roles. She never expected that she'd be on the show for so long. She notes there are still some fans who are upset Tara was killed off.
Aside from that, she also admired Michelle Trachtenberg, saying that she brought at a lot of youth and vitality to the show. She also said it was too bad she didn't get more time on the show.
Amber was friendly and engaging as a guest to the con. I saw her even talk to her former Buffy writer, David Fury. Speaking of which.....
But David Fury is also part of an ongoing discussion about whether Spike could be redeemed. At first, he didn't think that was possible, but later, he saw that Spike was a unique vampire...someone with a little humanity that may allow him to redeem himself. He also said that Spike really did want a soul..since he wrote Grave, the 6th season finale when that happened
He also mentioned something about how visiting Sacramento was a dream of his.
Anyway, after being a Whedon minion, he went to ABC, where he helped devlop the hit show, Lost. He tried to take what he learned from Joss, and put it in the show. He has since left the show, and is now headed for the Fox show 24. He opes that he can bring new sides to Jack Bauer while also adding some surprises during the next Big Crisis Only Jack Can Solve. He also hopes an Emmy nomination for Lost will be an Emmy win.
But now that he's left Lost, maybe he can tell us what the monster/security system was. Well, he will admit it was bionic.
As for writing for Buffy and Angel, he says his favorite character is Xander because he can really relate to him. Spike, meanwhile, as an amoral voice. He's also often asked to write for Anya and armony because of the "blonde in him".
He has admitted that the idea of a human woman falling for Spike could have been considered if Angel got a sixth season.
There was also a dispute over the climax to Destiny, where Spike and Angel were after the Cup of Perpetual Torment and possible Shanshu-ness. At first, they thought it should be Angel, then it was Spike because it would make Angel start to doubt his destiny. Spike did win...but it was Mountain Dew they found. For the record, hey did think of a finale: Angel gets his humanity back, but gives it to Spike, who refuses it. Actually. you could fix it where they split the "humanity" and become heroic daywalkers. It's an interesting idea.
He had planned to show "Smile Time" with live commentary. He changed that to "Crush", where Spuffy Love began to emerge, and Drusilla came back for old times sake.
But "Smile Time" did show Fury as the guy who made the puppets who soon became evil soul-suckers. He noted the puppeteers never broke character, not even when they started telling Crank Yanker jokes. The cast, however, wasn't fazed. Joss wasn't sure about the idea of evil puppets..until he suggested Angel could turn into an
evil puppet, too. By the way, he sold the poster which was a prop from that episode for 600 bucks.
